America may be a metropolitan nation, but most of us don't seem very happy about it.

A total of 252 million people -- 83.5 percent of all Americans -- live in metropolitan areas. That includes 164 million in the 51 biggest metros, the ones with populations above 1 million.

Yet a substantial number of these residents of big cities and inner-ring suburbs don't have their hearts in it. They would prefer to live on the suburban fringe or in small-town America, as repeatedly shown by surveys during the past decade.